This is it, the ultimate mid-sized 1986 Oldsmobile. Well, the ultimate FWD mid-sizer, anyway; in ’86 you could still get the old RWD Cutlass Supreme in Brougham trim. But it was a dinosaur. Forward-thinking middle agers and hip, happening Grandmas turned to the Cutlass Ciera without looking back.

Let’s consider this car’s snout for a minute, and remember how in 1986 Ford’s Taurus upended the entire mid-sized sedan market with its smooth and slippery new look. This Ciera’s front clip – the whole car, actually – is pretty good looking and was quite contemporary right up until that fateful day in December, 1985, when Tauruses arrived in Ford showrooms. Instantly, this became your father’s Oldsmobile.

Olds was really trying in those early years to create a car of contemporary style to help move GM into the FWD future. I rather like the blunt noses from ’82 through ’84; they befit the rest of the car’s attractive squareness. When I spotted this Ciera from afar, I rather hoped it was one of those. To the extent I have a bucket list of cars I want to find and photograph, the earliest A bodies are all on it.

Of course, Olds had to respond to the Taurus, and in 1987 composite headlamps appeared in a slightly rounded nose. Olds kept the traditional grille, though.

Most of the Cutlass Cieras still on the road here in Rustopia are from the later years, after GM Taurusified the A body as best it could, after the tooling had long been paid for, and after this car had become the darling of fleets everywhere. Their numbers have started to dwindle here over the past few years, but I’ll bet if I visited the nearest Wal-Mart right now I’d find three or four parked outside. Once in a while, you might even find an earlier six-window sedan there too – but never, ever in time-warp, showroom-fresh condition like this one.

I wish I had checked the odometer – I’ll bet this thing has less than 50,000 miles on it. The interior is spotless; colors on every surface are strong and fade-free.

Eventually, Oldsmobile quit caring that much about the Cutlass Ciera’s style. The price was right, it was roomy enough, it was reliable enough and cheap enough to fix, and driving one didn’t suck, so people kept buying them. So after 1989 Olds rode this car out for as long as it could with minimal changes year to year. But now, looking at this minty fresh Ciera dressed in its Sunday best, it’s nice to remember when Oldsmobile really tried to put its best foot forward with its new sedan.

My grandmother owned a nearly identical car. It was an ’86 white with the whorehouse red interior but the padded vinyl top was white too.
That was actually one of the first cars I ever drove on my own. She let me drive to the end of the long dirt road she lived on. I think I was 14.

It’s funny, you always remember the first car that you drive. My first drive was my brother’s best friend’s mid 70s Ford Ranchero. Just drove it around the block but it’s still fresh in my mind. What’s weird is how much of an impression it made on me. I’m not a big domestic car guy but every now and then when I troll around CL, I type in “ranchero”.

My stepmom had one of the earlier Cutlass Cierras, maybe an 82 or 83? I agree, I don’t often see the early square ones on my side of Indianapolis either. 🙂

That is certainly a nice one. That steering wheel looks like the one that graced my 84 Ninety Eight Regency. I miss the unusual steering wheel designs that seem to have gone away with the advent of air bags.

I was surprised at the steering wheel too; I would have imagined a different style in this, a much smaller car. Never liked this wheel, but do like the one Olds used a year or two later. This one just looks ancient.

I went to an old fashioned (not a national chain) auto parts store in the late 80’s for a bunch of parts for a Ciera and the counterman started looking up and pulling them. About 3 parts into the process I realized he was getting them for a Sierra. I always asked for “Oldsmobile Ciera car” parts after that.

That is certainly a broughamy Ciera. I’ve never really been a fan of A-Bodies….I always found them to be SO generic and representative of everything wrong with GM in the 80’s/90’s. THAT being said, this may be one of the most attractive Cieras I have ever seen. This way one could drive an admittingly practical front driver while still giving into his/her broughamance. Ok, I dig!

Really they weren’t good looking. Some of the flashy design elements were nice enough, but the C pillars and overall proportions were way way off. Compared to, say, a Cutlass Supreme coupe (which still looks great today), its not even close.

Plus, a few things about these cars really stick out in my memory: the cheap feel and sound of the doors when you closed them, and that wallowy, nose-heavy ride. I like a broughamy ride as much as the next guy, but with these cars, it felt like you were riding on a couch positioned over the front wheels. Not so great.

I get the rest, though…roomy, comfortable, economical, reliable and just enough faux luxury were the reasons the car remained in production so long.

The Colonnades were the last generation of GM product where all the Divisions had a successful, memorable entry. When I think X I always think Chevy and Buick. When I think A it’s Chevy and Olds. J was Chevy and Pontiac. H was pretty much all about Buick. Pontiac nailed their N with the Grand Am to the point I can barely remember the others.

After the Citation I wondered how good GMs could have been if they focused on one version of each platform instead of trying to have four, five counting Cadillac.

The A made a very nice Old Cutlass Ciera. Those taillamps, as simple as they are, were really distinctive back then. The car was narrow for its length and had a glassy upper. It was fresh, modern and uniquely American.

Then came the Ford Taurus and the A was obsolete overnight. The Taurus is what can happen when you focus on doing one thing better than everyone else. Ford management was no doubt watching GM closely and learning from its mistakes.

We did well with the C&H cars at Oldsmobile for most of the first FWD generation. The 88 sold well through most of it’s run, like the Ciera, it was traditionally styled and targeted the basic Olds demographic. The C slacked a bit more towards the end of it’s cycle, but was very popular initially.

The Celebrity beat the Taurus for the #1 slot in the US for MY1986, reversing roles for MY1987, but remember, by 1987, the A’s were already into MY#6 while the Taurus was just coming off it’s first. For most of it’s life, at least at Olds, Ciera owner retention was high. Owners repeat bought, kept them longer, and more of them stayed on the road for a longer period of time. The Taurus had about the same popularity curve as the A cars, but of course much later in time, so the year to year comparison is not strictly valid. Both the Taurus and the A redesigns bombed. For MY 1996, it has been documented that at least 50% of Taurus sales were to fleets and rental agencies, not showroom sales. By MY 1996, Cieras and Centurys (the proper plural form for the car is as I wrote it not as it would be grammatically when referring to 100 year spans), were the only A’s left. By then, few Cieras and Centurys were sold to rental agencies as such sales were taken over by other models. Comparing retail traffic the A’s versus Taurus/Sable be surprisingly close. The Century was redesigned for MY1997 and continued to sell reasonably well, the new Cutlass did not.

What the Taurus did, was expose a certain popularity in the market for an aero car, but one that looked and felt cool, but not too weird and clammy as the 96+ car’s did. It submit that both the Taurus/Sable and the GM A cars were very successful for their respective makers at slightly different times and for slightly different reasons. The real shame, is that both types of car’s did so well during their initial runs, but subsequent variants wasted that success to some degree. The Taurus became something of a laughing stock To the public by 2000 (or at least one that had no coolness factor), while Oldsmobile faded away and Buick did ok with later Centurys, but they were not the presence they were during that first run.

More sad than not seeing a worthy successor to the original Taurus was seeing how appliance-like GM cars became starting with the X models. The fleet sales of the Cavalier, Corsica and Celebrity must have exceeded 40% lifecycle average all three.

I understand how even fleet sales can be profitable as long as the fleet price clears the marginal cost of additional units. The problem is that the priorities for the program become delivering the lowest possible material cost, since the quality requirements for a daily rental are so low. For the next generation investment in design quality gets short changed unless there’s a real product champion around in the executive or development ranks. Probably the worst car I ever drove was a mid 90s Cavalier.

The Taurus was different. It had benchmarked competitive cars for just about every performance category and had a relevant personality. You are right it’s hard to compare Taurus year 1 and 2 with Celebrity years 6 and 7. What we do know is that the Taurus buyers, if Taurus wasn’t around, would have bought Japanese not Celebrity or Ciera.

Ford rested on its laurels with the facelifted ’92. Most people call this gen 2, I don’t. With that misstep Taurus became a fleet queen.

Going back to GM, their Chevrolet Celebrity was as half-asssed as Chrysler’s Dodge Dynasty. We know Chrysler got the wake up call because they responded with the breakthrough LH cars.

As for fleet sales, the Corsica specifically *might* have reached 40% in fleet sales during it’s last couple of years, but by then, the design was already 7-8 years in and 4 doors compacts like that are the most popular type of rental. The Buick Century and Oldsmobile Ciera were never pushed as rentals to a serious degree, they were too high up the model chain, even towards the end, Cieras and Centurys were sold mostly to retail consumers and as company cars, which is a somewhat different ‘fleet’ sale than rental buyers and commercial operators.

The car rental business is a big business so someone has to provide them with cars, so selling a certain percentage of your cars in that way is good business practice to a certain extent. It is also natural that domestic rental agencies primarily buy from domestic car makes for a variety of reasons. I am sure, I know for a fact,you can just go online if else, that rental agencies in Europe and Asia primarily offer home market cars to customers and they have to come from somewhere. Some cars, especially those from the value lines like Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, in those days would be natural candidates for rental and commercial fleet service. I am sure that is the same way everywhere in the world. Some rental agencies have commitments and historic relationships with car makes that provide a steady outlet for fleet vehicles. Again I am sure that exists elsewhere in the world in similar fashion. The imports in the past had not played the rental car game to the extent as the domestics, both because when most import car’s were really imported and with yen overvalued it did not make economic sense, as well as the fact that foreign makes had capacity issues and chose not to compete in that market channel. That has changed somewhat now there is a broad mix of makes and models at most agencies but the buying habits of individual agencies is beyond my purview. Also, finally, while most agencies will usually offer cars in most categories, rentals skew smaller and cheaper by type than in the overall car market which exaggerates the fact of using cheaper value line cars.

No GM passenger car was ever designed specifically for fleet use, but some naturally lend themselves as such for the reasons stated above. Often cost is a primary driver for both the retail and wholesale buyers so while the intended use might be different, the price point converges.

Again as for the Taurus in 1996, the reception of the redesign was poor, and Ford went to tremendous lengths, more than GM did on a car, to maximize sales driving wholesale sales through the roof to keep volume. That is a significant event for a car that was iconic just a few short years ago and had such impact on Ford and the auto market in general. While the Corsica *might* have reached 40% fleet by 1996, it was at the end of it’s lifecycle, GM was already planning for a new model, and by then the investment had been recouped and the marginal change in profit between a retail sale and a fleet sale was circumstantial.

As we know, the Celebrity was done by 1989 (except for wagon), the 6000 by 1991, while the Ciera and Century lingered until 1996 but they did so primarily due to retail demand. There were enough sales between those two models and variable costs so low, Oklahoma City ran at a profit all the way to the end. The Lumina, which was Celebrity’s replacement, had a higher fleet rate than the Celebrity and began known as a fleet queen much like the 96+ Taurus but Chevrolet didn’t shovel them out as hard as Ford tried with the Taurus.

My whole point of this, as it relates to the subject vehicle specifically the Ciera, managed to sell reasonably well, primarily to people walking into dealers buying them individually, for 15 model years. Unlike the Crown and TC that by the end were mostly call cars and perp coaches, the Ciera remained popular, even in slowly decreasing amounts, by private consumers in largely original form, for an extraordinarily long time. Maybe just not to the GM haters…

calibrick

Posted July 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM

“No GM passenger car was ever designed specifically for fleet use”

I don’t know about that. The last generation of the Skylark sold predominantly to fleets and GM knew that would be the case going in. The final two model years of Skylark sales were fleet only.

For me the A-body was Buick. I owned two of them, both 86’s. The first was my “inheritence” from my mother (aka, mom’s final revenge), and the only time in my life I’ve ever been involved with brougham-dom. Which is why I so arrogantly loathe them today. A Century Estate Wagon, complete with four-speed auto, V-6, wood paneling, fake wire wheel covers and burgundy velour whorehouse interior.

I hated that car. Hated taking it (had to give up a Ford Escort GT in early “ricer” modifications). And, unfortunately, up to that time it was the most reliable car I ever owned. It was four years until I could save up the money and justify getting rid of it.

The other ’86 was the honest, opposite end. Four door sedan, four cylinder, three speed automatic, base interior. Probably should have hung on to it longer, but there was a ’84 Daytona that was really turning me on . . . . .

The Ciera was to Oldsmobile in the 1980s what the Cutlass (Supreme) was in the 70s and very early 80s. Oldsmobile sold the hell out of them for almost their entire run and they overtook the RWD model fairly early on. It was Oldsmobile’s #1 volume model for most of it’s life and was a Top 10 US car for many years. It was the perfect follow up to the RWD Cutlass for the changing times. Oldsmobile made ALOT of money off the Ciera, in fact GM made a lot of money off the whole A-body line. Probably one of the best FWD platforms going in those years. Most A-body cars were generally reliable over the years, especially after all the engines got fuel injection. A Ciera with 2.8 or 3.8 V6 FI was a solid, well built capable if not flashy car that offered a lot of value for the dollar. I have not checked the numbers, but I know the Celebrity was #1 car for 1986, then Taurus for 1987, but remember, GM was building 4 model lines of the body. In 1986 alone they sold about 1.2 million of all A body, an incredible figure for a platform, especially considering it was already 5 years into the cycle. Toyota sold about 300k Camry last year but they only sell one car off that direct platform unless you want to roll the Lexus ES in there, but since Cadillac did not offer an A car, it would not be a direct comparison. GM has sold nearly 10 million A bodies over it’s 15 year span on that platform without a structural redesign. That’s a lot of clams for what was essentially one kind of car.

Of course, as to be expected, I have owned many A bodies of different flavors including my current Century. To me, the A body became something like the B body Caprice 77-96), a stable platform where the basic structure did not change much throughout it’s run. I know every all the in’s and outs of these cars, how to fix them quickly and inexpensively, and they have proven useful in different forms. Sort of like Cuban maintenance American style. Service engineering at Oldsmobile for most of the 80s was a joy, the diesels were mostly gone by 83 (or at least the failure rate drop considerably, the DX block was improved and the learning curve was met), the early teething problems of the X, J, and A cars were past, we were rapidly moving to TBI fuel injection and eventually MFI, which made a lot of drivability issues with carbs a thing of the past, while the old fashioned cars that still had the 307 we had long since figured them out so service was painless. The 80s were good years nearly till the end until the sales dropped and we knew the future was uncertain, but we had service down pat. The joys of stable engineering, only the truck guys with 350s and TBI had it easier. It probably was the same with the Ford guys with the Panther cars. Just as a taxi maintenance man, a stable platform like the Vics or the Caprices, it’s like a walk in the park if you can get decent drivers.

I have fond memories of these cars, everyone was happy. Owners loved them, they were easy to take care of, and at least at GM, once the initial investment was amortized after a few years, it was all gravy. The shit would have hit the fan at GM long before it did had the A not been successful. What makes everything so ironic, is that as we all know, the A’s are really just a reworked X. Sort of like how the Avalon is to the Camry at Toyota. It’s almost crazy to think about, people run and hide from X car involvement, but these cars bring fond memories to many. So these car’s were clearly NOT a Deadly Sin, probably something more like Rehab before the Relapse (W cars)…

No no please Craig don’t try to inject any real info into a discussion about a GM car, come on we all know these were terrible, GM has never made a good car, the wheels fell off an A-body the minute you drove it off the lot and then Roger Smith would send you a picutre of himself giving you the finger in the mail…..

PS

I would like to know more about the W-car developement, were you ever involved with that?

I had a 91 Ciera that was white with the blue interior given to me by my Grandmother because I was in desperate need of a car after totalling my 97 Civic. Since it was my grandmother’s car, of course it was in really good shape and had pretty low miles on it given its age. It wasnt flashy or sporty by no means but it was really comfortable and reliable the whole 2 years I had it only needing routine maintenance. Everything still worked on it right up until the end. Ended up having to junk it because it threw a rod and the cost to have it fixed just wasn’t worth it to me considering it’s age. I see a lot of these things still on the road today which says a lot considering it’s a GM product designed in the 80’s when GM was on a serious downward spiral.

I’m typically late to the game here but have to throw my two-bits-worth in. I very much like these A-body cars and prefer them to the RWD stuff GM built in this time period (exceptions: F-body, P-body, and Cadillac).

I’ve owned several of these from all four marques and enjoyed them all. The carbureted 2.8 cars were a bit finicky but the 2.5, 2.8, 3.3, & 3.8 FI powered cars were perfect daily drivers.

My most recent A-body was a $400 60K ’87 Ciera Brougham discovered on Craigslist. The original owner parked the car in ’90 after his wife died and when he started having problems, his adult children sold me the car as inop.

The car woke up after dealing with fun stuff like the gas tank & brake system and I enjoyed driving it to work and ’round town’ for several months afterward. The interior was very comfortable and attractive: dark carmine sure beats the gray & beige of today. The 2.5 engine and transaxle combo is really a nice setup in these and very easy to work on. Not a lot of power, but plenty adequate for my tastes.

Lots of other little “gotchas” popped up but nothing beyond irritating. The ashtray guides nearly always break off on the Cieras so finding a used set took a month or two. All door latches had to be removed, degreased, & regreased before the power lock actuators were strong enough to do their job… but I like dealing with little issues like that.

I eventually sold the car for what I had in it which was around $1,000. Hopefully it is still going. I find it a particulary attractive sedan but I also find its Celebrity and Century cousins just as good looking. (The 6000…well, I like them the best overall due to the wacky 80’s factor but don’t much care for the rear styling and bodyside cladding that can now be picked off like an old scab). I prefer this style to the later rounded version that came out around 1990.

Okay, here’s my view from behind the wheel. The optional tach cluster is far superior to the base cluster my car had. I don’t believe the digital dash included all gauge functions but I’m not 100% on that.

Our family had an 83 model that is UPS or turd brown. It had the 3.0 V6 and 3-speed auto, most likely the THM125. It was an ok car but we kept it for 10 years. Later on the tranny took a dump and the A/C stopped working. Also the radio/tape deck went haywire and was replaced with just an AM/FM. IMO the post 1985 A-Bodies were an improvement over the earlier ones since the injected 2.8,3.8 and later 3.1 and 3.3 were available. I read that the FWD A-bodies were the first cars to use the Delco 2000 ETR stereo/tape decks that GM used in the 80s and 90s.

That is almost unheard of. The 125C trans axle’s were as bullet proof as they came. About the only issues I have come across are the torque converter solenoid and the TV cable that frays with years of torture. Both are easy cheap fixes and many service garages mis-diagnosed them when a simple fix was all that was needed. The Buick 3.0 liter carb V6 was garbage and rarely did I ever see one with much over 100K that wasn’t either rebuilt or swapped out. The best engines for these cars were the old Iron Duke or Tech IV 2.5 4 cylinder, the Chevy 2.8 MFI/3.1 MFI, the Buick 3300/3.8 V6 or the later 3100 engines. There was also a Cavalier 2200 offered in certain 93-96 models but it lacked torque and very few were equipped with it.

I’m also late to the game, but I have to mention the 1989 Ciera LS 4-dr. I got from my elderly neighbor for $500 bucks after she couldn’t drive any more. It was a 60,000 mile original car, 2.8 V-6, always garaged and in great shape! It was weirdly equipped too – no cruise, but tilt, power windows and locks, power seat, alloy wheels, power trunk release and a cassette player with power antenna. It was dark blue with blue cloth interior. Imagine my surprise when I walked across the street to pay her son and take the car home. I started it up and BAM it sounded like an explosion! Someone had stolen the catalytic converter off the car and no one knew. Well, $300 bucks later I installed a completely new exhaust system and the car ran and sounded like new. As the miles crept up I started to replace everything – CV joints, alternator, rear brakes (I almost got killed when the rear drums locked up on a rainy day when I stopped short and the Ciera decided to make a neat little spin; unnerving to say the least!) I ended up keeping it for about a year until I didn’t want to dump any more money into it. It had a strange vibration in the front end around 65 mph – nothing my mechanic tried could fix that problem – so I decided to sell it. I actually sold it for what I paid plus all the repairs, so I made out ok. Sometimes I do miss that car, though!

Just out of high school and right before college (Summer, 1996) my totally (and surprisingly) reliable Eagle Premier was totaled. Looking around the car lots of Toledo, I came across an extremely low mileage 1988 Cutlass Ciera International Series sedan. I looked great in glass black with lower great body cladding and a 3.8 liter V6. Knowing my cars, I knew this was supposedly one of the most reliable American cars out there. Well, it wasn’t. . . After only 2 weeks (and 60,000 miles) the engine gave out completely. Luckily I purchased it from a reliable dealer and the car came with a warranty. Instead of going through the expense of rebuilding the car, the dealer gave me a good price on a 1991 Eagle Talon. This car completely ruined anything from GM for me from that time on. Since then, it has been the only non Mopar product I have or will ever own. A better choice, though not much more exciting car, would have been the Spirit/Acclaim/LeBaron trio. . . I have gotten 300,000 miles on one and 250,000 on the other. And the Lebaron Landau certainly had the brougham upright “traditional” look that cars lack today.

I have owned no less than 7 A-body cars over the years. An 83 Ciera Brougham, an 84 Ciera Broughman, one 89 base Ciera, two 93 base Cieras, a 95 Ciera SL and a 96 Century. The 83 had the lousy Buick 3.0 V6, the 84 had the Tech IV, the 89 had Chevy’s 2.8 MFI V6, the 93’s both has Buick 3300 V6 and the 96 Century had the 3100 motor. I never lost an engine or transmission on one of them and they were for the most part solid reliable transportation.

The 83 and 84 had issues with the steering racks, which I easily remedied by sucking out the old fluid and substituting part new fluid and trans X. The 83 3.0 suffered from leaky valve cover gaskets, water pump, motor mounts, carburetor/drive-ability ills and poor mileage but I was one of the lucky few to go well over 100k without throwing a rod. The 84 Tech IV was much better and needed little other than a valve cover gasket and FI cleaning service at 110K. The 89 was bullet proof tied to the 125C trans axle and that car still ran well with over 300K on the clock when I sold it to a friend who sold it to his sister who wrecked the front end and sold it to a mechanic who fixed it and drove it several more years before totaling it. Both 93’s were very reliable and only needed service items like struts, brakes, TV cables and an alternator with well over 100K. The 96 Buick started off with the infamous intake problem but once the dealer took care of that it went another 200K without a hitch. That 96 was probably the best of the bunch and had a noticeably better ride and handling and the 3100/4 speed 4T60 provided the best performance of any prior A-body I have driven. Also of note the 93 on up A-body Buick and Olds came std with power driver and passenger seat recliners and door locks. A driver’s airbag was offered as an option in 93 and was made std in 94. Also the 94-96 came with std ABS which was nice and lowered your insurance.